Modern Tragedy

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ is a story set in an Ibo village in Nigeria at the turn of the century, when old tribal ways are being turned upside down by their first encounters with colonialism and Christianity. Achebe takes us deep into the customs of the tribe by focusing on the tale of Okonkwo, a respected senior with several wives and children, describing the man's rise from humble beginnings and then charting, with unrelenting detail, the slow implosion of his fortunes as the story unfolds. At times the events described make for hard reading; the ways of the tribe can be brutal and unforgiving, and how they clash with the supposedly more 'civilised' forces of the outside world only makes matters worse.

Critics have compared this novel to classical Greek tragedy and it is easy to see why, since Achebe manages to highlight universal truths through minutely focused attention on the detail of individual lives. Through the rise and fall of Okonkwo we see the inextricable links between individual ambition and the bigger patterns of destiny that can crush such ambition in an instant. We also see that this story, like life, is not based on simple patterns of Right and Wrong. Instead Achebe cleverly makes us consider a much bigger picture, one in which ancient tradition, individual aspiration and invading foreign systems collide in the most problematic way; nor does he offer any glib, easy answers for his characters to find a way out of the mess.

The lyrical directness of Achebe's prose style makes 'Things Fall Apart' all the more compelling. It reminded me of the visionary power of Alan Paton’s ‘Cry the Beloved Country’ – an equally heart-rending novel about the destruction of rural tribal life in South Africa and the sickening corruption of apartheid. Both books are written in an affectingly simple style that masterfully belies the darkness and complexity of the subjects they are examining. Both stories might make you weep. Yet I also defy any reader not to marvel at the sheer power of the written word; how Achebe, like Paton, through deploying insightful and poetic compassion to depict the worst of humanity, manages to illuminate the redemptive qualities that still give us all cause to hope.



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